What the heck is a ‘multi-spectral’ stylus? Decoding the recent rumor

Tips about upcoming smartphones can turn up anywhere, and as we try to sort through all the rumors and theories surrounding upcoming devices, that can often mean looking at tips that don’t originate in a language we natively speak. For as good as translation tools have become, sometimes we’re still left scratching our heads a little bit at their output — and that’s exactly what’s going on now for smartphones fans trying to make sense of a recent folding-phone rumor.

We’re looking at a message posted to Weibo over the weekend from tipster Smart Pikachu. And as you’d expect from a Weibo post, the content is in Chinese. There, Smart Pikachu offers some insight into plans for the Honor Magic V6 and OPPO Find N6. And that post wraps up with the note (emphasis ours):

One boasts a slim design and a large 7K battery, while the other features a multi-spectral stylus.

What the heck is a multi-spectral stylus supposed to be? We ran the original text through several different translation engines, and keep getting pretty much that same output.

Sites like GSM Arena have posted speculation that this could be about advanced sensor tech, pressure sensitivity, latency reduction, or pretty much any other stylus upgrade you could imagine. And while we suppose that any of that’s possible, none of that really makes any sense to our ears when we’re talking “multi-spectral.”

So what could it mean, then? When we’re thinking about spectra in a tech context, our mind goes immediately to the electromagnetic spectrum: the vast range of frequencies over which everything from visible light to radio waves exist. Or there’s always the possibility that we’re using the term in a more limited form, like just the different colors of light.

Considering that, we’ve come up with two theories that attempt to explain what was meant here by a multi-spectral stylus:

• Multi-band RF support: “Multi-spectral” could refer to the stylus both operating as a Bluetooth device in the 2.4GHz range, as well as using lower-frequency electromagnetic resonance for stylus positioning.
• Pretty colors: “Multi-spectral” might be nothing more than a pretentious way to say “available in fancy new color options.”

Right now, this is still largely guesswork. But we feel like these guesses make a whole lot more sense than anything like the addition of random new stylus sensors.

The only thing still giving us pause is that neither of these interpretations sound particularly interesting. Bluetooth support on a stylus is nothing new — not even for these brands — and it’s hard to get very excited about some new pen colors. But could that be exactly why this rumor arrived dressed up in such gaudy language? For now, we’re open to hearing any better theories — let us know down in the comments.